David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas consists of six stories set in various periods between 1850 and a time far into Earth's post-apocalyptic future. Each segment lives on its own the previous first person account picked up and read by a character in its successor creating connective tissue between each moment in time. The various stories remain intact for Tom Tykwer's (Run Lola Run) Lana Wachowski's and Andy Wachowski's (The Matrix) film adaptation which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. The massive change comes from the interweaving of the book's parts into one three-hour saga — a move that elevates the material and transforms Cloud Atlas in to a work of epic proportions.
Don't be turned off by the runtime — Cloud Atlas moves at lightning pace as it cuts back and forth between its various threads: an American notary sailing the Pacific; a budding musician tasked with transcribing the hummings of an accomplished 1930's composer; a '70s-era investigatory journalist who uncovers a nefarious plot tied to the local nuclear power plant; a book publisher in 2012 who goes on the run from gangsters only to be incarcerated in a nursing home; Sonmi~451 a clone in Neo Seoul who takes on the oppressive government that enslaves her; and a primitive human from the future who teams with one of the few remaining technologically-advanced Earthlings in order to survive. Dense but so was the unfamiliar world of The Matrix. Cloud Atlas has more moving parts than the Wachowskis' seminal sci-fi flick but with additional ambition to boot. Every second is a sight to behold.
The members of the directing trio are known for their visual prowess but Cloud Atlas is a movie about juxtaposition. The art of editing is normally a seamless one — unless someone is really into the craft the cutting of a film is rarely a post-viewing talking point — but Cloud Atlas turns the editor into one of the cast members an obvious player who ties the film together with brilliant cross-cutting and overlapping dialogue. Timothy Cavendish the elderly publisher could be musing on his need to escape and the film will wander to the events of Sonmi~451 or the tortured music apprentice Robert Frobisher also feeling the impulse to run. The details of each world seep into one another but the real joy comes from watching each carefully selected scene fall into place. You never feel lost in Cloud Atlas even when Tykwer and the Wachowskis have infused three action sequences — a gritty car chase in the '70s a kinetic chase through Neo Seoul and a foot race through the forests of future millennia — into one extended set piece. This is a unified film with distinct parts echoing the themes of human interconnectivity.
The biggest treat is watching Cloud Atlas' ensemble tackle the diverse array of characters sprinkled into the stories. No film in recent memory has afforded a cast this type of opportunity yet another form of juxtaposition that wows. Within a few seconds Tom Hanks will go from near-neanderthal to British gangster to wily 19th century doctor. Halle Berry Hugh Grant Jim Sturgess Jim Broadbent Ben Whishaw Hugo Weaving and Susan Sarandon play the same game taking on roles of different sexes races and the like. (Weaving as an evil nurse returning to his Priscilla Queen of the Desert cross-dressing roots is mind-blowing.) The cast's dedication to inhabiting their roles on every level helps us quickly understand the worlds. We know it's Halle Berry behind the fair skinned wife of the lunatic composer but she's never playing Halle Berry. Even when the actors are playing variations on themselves they're glowing with the film's overall epic feel. Jim Broadbent's wickedly funny modern segment a Tykwer creation that packs a particularly German sense of humor is on a smaller scale than the rest of the film but the actor never dials it down. Every story character and scene in Cloud Atlas commits to a style. That diversity keeps the swirling maelstrom of a movie in check.
Cloud Atlas poses big questions without losing track of its human element the characters at the heart of each story. A slower moment or two may have helped the Wachowskis' and Tykwer's film to hit a powerful emotional chord but the finished product still proves mainstream movies can ask questions while laying over explosive action scenes. This year there won't be a bigger movie in terms of scope in terms of ideas and in terms of heart than Cloud Atlas.
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S2E7: The Hawaii Five-0 showrunners sure wanted to give us some thrills for tonight's Halloween episode -- and boy, did they deliver, turning in easily the season's scariest hour.
It all starts, and revolves around, the murder of two young amateur documentarians who were killed while filming from an infamous local sacred graveyard, looking for the mythic "ghost warriors."
The Five-0 quickly arrive at the scene, and Danny, of course, disobeys the tradition of waiting for a priest to "bless" them before entering the scene of the crime, at which a hand belonging to the male victim is the only sign of the murder.
After the autopsy and some research, Max discovers fingerprints on the female victim that belong to a man named Greg Straithan, but he is immediately ruled out as a suspect, because he's dead -- murdered by his criminally insane girlfriend. Apparently, that is: McGarrett and Co. wonder if this was simply the perfect opportunity for Straithan to have faked his own death. And when they go to exhume Straithan's body, after a fruitless interview with his hospitalized gilfriend, it is missing, only fanning the flames of their theory.
But Max assures them that Straithan is, in fact, dead, his severed hand found in a bag at the original scene of the crime -- which is where they return to look for the rest of the body. It is also there that piece together other clues and conclude that a homeless man (guest star Robert Englund), who warned them previously not to investigate the murder in the first place, is the killer. He is quickly apprehended nearby almost quite literally holding the proverbial "smoking gun" (er, machete).
Alas, though, while he seems quite mean and possibly dangerous, the homeless man is ruled out, as the blood on his weapon was matched to that of an animal he'd hunted. And furthermore, as the Five-0 crew soon discovers, they're not looking for a serial killer but rather a "businessman who's selling cadaver parts on the black market."
At which point they turn to a new suspect: mortuary attendant Tyler Mitchell, who, in hindsight, was mysteriously apprehensive about helping to exhume Greg Straithan's body. For good reason! The full squad races to the mortuary at which he worked, only to find him dead and realize, yet again, that they had the wrong guy. Mitchell was in cahoots with a hospital employee named Jacob Garrison, who was using the lucrative "body-parts trade" to pay off his extensive debt.
His moneymaking days -- and non-moneymaking days -- come to an end, however, when he gets caught by Five-0 at his own house and opts to light himself (and his house) on fire rather than surrendering.
TOP FIVE MOMENTS FROM TONIGHT'S EPISODE
1. The opening scene, which features a Blair Witch Project-style slaying -- quite appropriate for the Halloween episode.
2. Max, always the comic-relief fall guy, briefs McGarrett and Danny on his autopsy findings in the super-serious murder case -- all while dressed as Neo from The Matrix in his Halloween-spirited office.
3. "Nice, Italian marble ... You know, by law, youre gonna have to disclose that there was a murder here. Probably have to cut the rent in half ... at least. I mean, most people -- they wont even rent a place where theres been a violent crime. Ya know, bad mojo, stuff like that. Me, personally, I never minded a little bit of blood." -Danny, talking to the landlord of the apparent victim Greg Straitham -- and hoping to movie into his apartment.
4. The scene in which a scary -- but not quite Freddie Krueger scary -- Robert Englund is found wielding a bloody machete (and a lot of dirt and grime).
5. The Five-0 gang busts into the mortuary looking for Mitchell, flashlight guns drawn, creaky doors, well, creaking. Lori finds Mitchell dead and in the unappetizing process of being embalmed. Thats when someone sneaks up on her from behind out of one of the many closed caskets in the room and bludgeons her with some sort of postmortem instrument. (She's somehow basically unharmed, though.) Boo!